The Negro Speaks of Rivers
-By Langston Hughes

I've known rivers:
I've known rivers ancient as the world and older than the flow
of human blood in human veins.
My soul has grown deep like the rivers.
I bathed in the Euphrates when dawns were young.
I built my hut near the Congo and it lulled me to sleep.
I looked upon the Nile and raised the pyramids above it.
I heard the singing of the Mississippi when Abe Lincoln went
down to New Orleans, and I've seen its muddy bosom turn
all golden in the sunset.

external image stagg021.jpg

Langston Hughes has a lot of pride in his heritage and loves to celebrate, in his writing, the existence of his people. He is aknowledged for his work during the harlem renaissance. This painting i think recognizes the beauty behind African American art, that Hughes so passionately writes about.


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